During the past several days, I’ve spent time, as I often do, cruising through internet sites that are concerned mainly with
environmental issues, especially climate change, and those that
provide insights on the state of the body politic. The snippets I’ve picked up make for a consistent picture. For example, I’ve seen of late is that the moral and intellectual deficiencies of the Trump administration, including agencies headed
by Trump appointees, are being countered in states across the
country. Here are several instances:
Colorado and New Mexico have adopted new policies
aimed toward capturing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas
operations in the state, a counter to the Trump administration’s rollback of
Obama-era rules targeting those emissions.
Oregon is also taking aim at
the Trump administration's rollbacks. Governor Kate Brown is expected to sign a
bill codifying into state law federal clean air and clean water standards that
were in place before Trump took office. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan
Grisham recently signed a landmark bill that puts the state’s energy
sector on an ambitious path. The Energy Transition Act accelerates the
state's current renewable electricity standard of 20 percent by 2020 to 50
percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2040, 100 percent carbon-free by 2050. Two other
states, Hawaii and California, have already set forth plans
for a path to zero-carbon electricity.
California is
mounting probably the biggest legal battle of all with federal regulators. The
state, with some of the most smog-choked cities in the country, is trying to
tighten auto emissions standards, even as the EPA and Transportation Department
loosen tailpipe rules on new cars and smaller pickup trucks. Trump, of course,
doesn’t like this. He took numerous jabs at California during an address at a National
Association of Realtors’ legislative meetings on Friday, as reported in Politico.
He repeated his criticism of the state’s high-speed rail project and said that
inadequate “forest management.” was to blame for the state's spate of deadly
wildfires. “He blames it on global warming,” Trump said of California Gov.
Gavin Newsom. “I say, ‘Look, try cleaning the floor of the forest a little
bit. So you don’t have four feet of leaves and broken trees that have sat there
for 25 years.’" It hardly needs to be pointed out that Trump’s knowledge
of best practices in forest management is on a par with his weak understanding
of how global warming has ushered in major changes in rainfall and temperature
patterns.
On a related note, it’s interesting that climate change is
affecting the Panama Canal, which has experienced lower water levels because of
a serious drought. Carlos Vargas, the Panama Canal Authority’s executive vice
president for environment, water, and energy, called the last five months “the
driest dry season in the history of the canal,” the New
York Times reports. The shift has resulted in some shippers having to
reduce how much cargo they carry. This drought is affecting more than the
canal: it is responsible for tragic losses of crops in Central American
countries, where most people live close to the edge in terms of their standard of
living.
Many see no other choice but
migrating northward and attempting to enter the US. They should be treated as refugees, not only from war and brutal police but from conditions brought on by
climate change. The way we treat asylum seekers should be informed by an empathic
understanding of their situations, not the administration's cold-hearted practices.
Undark magazine
reports that since 2007 the concentration of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, surged
suddenly and unexpectedly. Possible
causes for the rising emissions range from the anthropocentric—leaky natural
gas operations, landfill decomposition, livestock belching, and certain forms
of agriculture, to the natural—wetlands,
rivers and lakes, wildfires, geological seeps, thawing permafrost and even the
work of termites. One possible source is
tropical wetlands, which release methane as part of a natural decomposition
process. That's a worrisome scenario. A warming planet causes natural methane
seeps to accelerate, which in turn leads to yet more planetary warming.
I wonder if President Trump isn't showing symptoms of mental
illness. He recently went to southwest
Louisiana, on an official taxpayer-funded
trip, ostensibly to talk up his administration's effort to open U.S.
natural gas to international markets. But--as he seems to do compulsively--instead of acting presidential, he went off-script to overtly attack his
political rivals in his signature unpleasant style.
This even as the administration's trade policies threaten the growth of
the natural gas export business Trump went to Louisiana to promote. And of course, he failed to take notice of Louisiana's predicament vis a vis climate
change, as described above. Trump's
behavior is of more significance than just party politics; the President of the nation, focused on his childish personal
insecurities, is dismissive of the vast accumulated knowledge that climate
change presents a present and long-range threat to the welfare of the country—indeed,
of the planet.
It's encouraging that states are picking up the slack insofar as they're able, but there is such a lot that needs doing! At
some future time, when a politically critical level of awareness has been
achieved at the national level, there’ll be frantic stabs at action, blaming, and unrest—and a good bit
of human tragedy. The time is short before the pressures of climate change rather than reasoned forethought brings us to that
place. When I feel frustrated about this, I’ve found it helpful to meditate at
times on Lao-tzu’s philosophy. I read regularly in A
Path and a Practice, William Martin’s very accessible rendering of
Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Lao-tzu teaches that while each of us is on a
path, we live in the now:
The
present moment is all we have,
so we are not constantly seeking
a faster way to do things
or a better place to be
The Roman Stoic, Epictetus, opens his manual of ethical advice with the line, “Some things are in our
control, others not.” He follows with
this: When something is not in your control, say to yourself, “Then it’s none
of my concern.” Ah, but these Stoics leave us in an uneasy place. How can we conclude
that we have no control? It’s all too easy to let ourselves off the hook. So we keep at possibly quixotic efforts. Until next time...write to me with your thoughts.
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